The present invention relates to processing automatic identification data, and in particular, to systems and methods for visualizing automatic identification data.
Auto-identification (auto-id) systems are used, for example, to identify or otherwise obtain information about products that are to be manufactured, bought or sold, transported, or otherwise used in commerce. For example, information regarding a physical object, such as a box in a backroom, may be stored in association with a tag or other identifier that is affixed to the box, and/or an object tagged with a unique identifier may be located on a shelf in a retail store. Then, some sort of device, such as a reader or sensor, may be used to identify the physical object by accessing the identifier, and thereby use information stored in a computer system corresponding to the object, such as, for example, a brand name of the object or an expiration date of the object.
One example of an auto-id system is known as a Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) system. RFID generally refers to technologies in which a unique number (and/or other identifying information) is stored on a microchip that is associated with an antenna coupled to an RFID tag or transponder. A reader is used to communicate with the antenna and obtain the unique number from the microchip, and thereby obtain information associated with the unique number. Advantageously, RFID is fast and wireless, does not require a direction or line-of-sight to enable communication between readers and tags, and reduces or eliminates the need for human data entry. As a result, RFID may be used in many applications, such as, for example, identification of tagged objects within stores or warehouses, automatic payment of tolls by cars with RFID tags, and/or identification of authorized personnel for entry into a restricted area.
Many types of auto-id system devices exist. Examples include 2D bar code scanners, smart card devices/readers, optical character recognition systems, and biometric systems (e.g., retinal and fingerprint scans). Many or all such systems have the ability or the potential to reduce costs, increase efficiency, improve data accuracy, provide data with more granularity (even down to the single item/object level), and thereby improve customer satisfaction within the operations of an enterprise system.
However, one problem with auto-id systems is that a potentially vast amount of information may be acquired. For example, a very large number of readers may access auto-ids from an even larger number of identifiers. Moreover, each identifier may have associated information about the particular objects they are attached to. To compound this problem, the data associated with each identifier may change over time. Thus, large data sets may grow even larger as time passes. While such a large data set may contain useful information for performing a wide variety of tasks, it is difficult to present such a large volume of data to a user in a meaningful way. Therefore, it would be advantageous to develop techniques for displaying and visualizing auto-id data.
Thus, there is a need for improved auto-id data display and visualization. The present invention solves these and other problems by providing systems and methods for visualizing auto-id data.